


A Thousand Blended Notes

by littleloonlost



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5383970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleloonlost/pseuds/littleloonlost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for josephcda for the got_exchange, for the prompt:<br/>"Jon and Dany meet (Again, deviate from the main plot if you need to). Explore R+L= J (maybe throw in the idea that Dany thinks she should marry him according to Targaryen custom.) Make sure both Jon and Dany know about his true parentage."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Blended Notes

SPRING

Jon did not set a hard pace on his journey south. It was hard to muster a sense of urgency since the spring began. Those who were going to die were dead and those who were going to live had no hope of any greater gift.

Besides, it would give him more time to think about what he meant to say.

The Queen had suggested she come to him – a gracious offer, no doubt, and it was certainly quicker to fly than ride. But what was left of the North did not need to see another dragon.

The horse shook his head nervously as Ghost trotted at his heels. They had been separated a long time during the winter, but Ghost stayed closer than ever now. This time Jon would have left him behind if he could. 

When he first left Winterfell for the Wall, he had spent many lonely nights imagining his father and sisters’ journey down the Kingsroad, what they were seeing and smelling without him. There was no Kingsroad anymore, and very little country Sansa might have recognised. He rode past spans of scorched earth and places where the ground had thrown villages into the sky, farms that had crumbled beneath the farmers. For three days he had to walk after his horse stumbled over a chimney stack, just sticking out of the rubble that buried the roof it was still attached to.

Nothing grew on most of this land. Where he did catch sight of shoots, the flash of green was startling amongst the ashen grey of the landscape. 

Finally, he decided he had gone far enough. Perhaps this wasn’t quite where the Queen would expect to find him – nothing resembled any map anymore – but he did not doubt that find him, she would.

Sure enough, it was not time enough for another sunset before a breeze stirred across the valley floor, sweeping a wave of dust before it, and the sky grew dark. Jon’s horse screamed and tried to kick loose of his hobble. Ghost held his ground but bared his teeth, white in the black. As quickly as the great shadow fell it was gone, the sun blinding for a moment, then another fell over them and was gone. 

Jon stood still until he saw the dragons land. The black beast seemed twice the size it had been when he saw it last. The other seemed almost to have dwindled.

He took his time about putting on his gloves and checking his sword, once, twice, again, though he could not imagine using it. He was no closer to guessing what she wanted from him.

She had come alone.

He saw a quicksilver motion as a figure jumped from the dragon’s back. There could be no doubt, even at this distance. Her gown was deep forest green, with bronze trim, and her silver hair hung in the tight braid she wore for flying. Once her feet was on the ground not even her hair moved.

She was frozen. For a moment Jon saw ice.

Then he shook his head, and began to walk.

~

WINTER

Jon was crashing through the void, numb as ice and stone. Longclaw pulled free from the belly of one foe and swung from over his head to cleave another’s head in two. The blade crusted with frozen blood. The next time he hit stone. He was no longer facing the wight he’d been fighting, but it made no difference. There were so many, they seemed a wall of their own.

One of the brothers was still trying to light fires. Jon jumped over a barrel of pitch. It was long too late. There was nothing here that would catch light. Perhaps nothing anywhere.

There was no hope, of course. Jon did not see things that were not there. It was over. But they would fight. He would fight, if his brothers were dead, and he would fall with the Wall. He wondered if he would know when it happened.

He felt nothing.

There had been no sight of the sky for months, much less the sun. There was no day or night, only snow. 

So he was slow to recognise that they suddenly seemed covered by a tent of black. Pain screamed in his fingertips, his toes and teeth. It cost him more than a moment to realise the pain came from a breath of warmth.

Above the wights, above the Others, above the very Wall itself, he saw a picture out of children’s stories, of ancient histories.

The great black dragon was so large and so dreadful that his eyes could not see it all at once. The steam blowing from its nostrils far above had been enough to thaw his ears. It was only when it flew higher still, spiralling with a great scream, that he saw another, and another. 

Jon felt his stomach for the first time in days. Had there been anything in it, it would have emptied.

Then he saw the girl. Astride the black monster, she made a tiny figure, but not one anyone could miss.

He leapt atop the barricades to get a better view. 

She saw him, and urged her dragon down. Their eyes locked. She had purple eyes. They burned. She wore no cloak. 

He knew her. Rhaegar’s sister.

He felt it when the Other touched him, only for the instant it took to jerk backwards. His feet skittered on the edge. He didn’t know if he was trying to catch his footing or to pull away from the Other’s fingertip, frozen to his chest.

Jon fell.

The Other fell with him. Such features as it had twisted with the joy of killing.

Jon fell, as he and thousands of children had in millions of nightmares.

The Wall got taller and taller as he flew. His cloak billowed like useless wings.

Jon fell, as he had once before, with Ygritte.

Once again, he was caught.

Jon could feel the jar in every bone as he crashed into a mass at once solid and rippling like a wave, coursing with heat and rage. Nothing had ever hurt so much. The dragon casually dipped its wings. Fat snowflakes evaporated before they even touched the shimmering green scales.

The Other’s touch melted loose from his chest. It recoiled from the broiling body and slipped away into the drop below. 

Jon only realised he had thrown his arms around the dragon’s neck when it tossed its head back, using the full length of that sinuous neck. His weight was thrown backwards and he gripped with his thighs.

The dragon rushed downwards in a vertical drop. Jon felt sure only sweat and magic held him to its back. The ground could not have been far below when the dragon tossed its head again and roared. Sheets of ice broke from the Wall, even before the flames poured forth. 

The Other never had the chance to hit the ground. 

~

SPRING

Drogon turned a half-shut eye to Jon’s approach and flicked his tail.

Jon ignored the absurd notion that he should acknowledge the dragon in some way. Perhaps he was trying to avoid acknowledging the rider.

He took a knee awkwardly, not sure if that was too much or not enough. He raised his eyes to hers and thought she might be amused, though her features had not moved.  
“Stand, Lord Snow.” She clucked her teeth in irritation. “Do you still insist on that name?”

“I’m not a lord, your grace.” He hesitated. “Is that right? Your grace? Is that what I should call you?”

She looked sad. “I don’t know what you should call me. But I would prefer you called me sister.”

He recoiled. “ _Sister?_ No, your grace.” His face burned with recollections distinctly unfraternal in nature. “I – I have sisters, your grace. One living, still.”

She spun on her heel and her braid whipped him. He hadn’t realised he was standing so close. 

She tugged on the braid until her hair came loose. Putting her face to the dragon’s neck, she growled in her throat. The flicks of Drogon’s tail became more emphatic, sending a small rock skittering towards Jon. Drogon’s eye was all the way open now.

“You still deny what you are.”

“No, your grace.” 

She looked back towards him and gestured him closer. With a cautious eye on Drogon, he took a step. He was conscious of Ghost behind him, silent and unseen, but just as much a presence in his way.

“Rhaegar’s firstborn favoured her mother, too, they say.” The Queen raised a hand to his cheek. “Your sister, Rhaenys. She took the Dornish colouring.”

He had forgotten until now, when he was a boy, how much he longed for someone to say he looked like his mother. For someone to say _anything_ about his mother.

“May I call you Daenerys?”

She drew back, startled. 

“I meant no disrespect.”

“No, I – of course, yes. Daenerys. Dany.”

They smiled.

“My condolences on your loss, your – Dany.”

She seemed unconscious of the tears that dropped on her cheeks. “Rhaegal. He was named for your father and my son.” She shook her head. “It was _your_ loss, Snow. You would have been a dragonrider.”

He laughed aloud at that and could feel Ghost’s surprise at hearing such a sound from him.

“Anyway,” she continued, “That brings us to our business here. According to the histories, if a dragon’s rider died, it was sometimes possible for another to bond him. According to the histories, it couldn’t work the other way. A dragonrider could fly only one dragon. But the histories burned, along with most of the known world.”

Jon noticed for the first time that Viserion wore a harness.

She walked to the cream-and-gold dragon and patted his neck down to his tail. She whispered to the beast in what he could only guess was High Valyrian. It hissed and leaned into her caress.

Daenerys turned to Jon, holding out the lead rope.

“I don’t know if you will ever be able to fly Viserion, Jon Snow, Prince of the Wall-that-was. But he is yours.”

Ghost stepped between them, hackles raised. Jon realised his hand was reaching for the rope and hastily brought it to rest on Ghost’s head instead.

“No! I – Daenerys, I-”

He dropped to one knee again.

“You are most gracious, my queen. I offer my deepest thanks. But I cannot accept such a gift.”

“I ought to wrap this around your neck and let him fly!” She shook the rope. “You do wake the dragon in me, Jon Snow. Are you determined to be miserable?”

Three dragons stared at him, looking ready to combust.

“I am offering you more power than any man alive. I am _trying_ to celebrate our union, Jon Snow, and you would kick that in my face?”

Jon fell back on his heels and his mouth hung open in a manner he would surely find comical in any other situation. Even Ghost promptly sat.

“Our _what_?”

“We can be married before the Old Gods or the New, or the Lord of Light for all I care. But I will not dither around any longer!”

Jon reached for his sword.

~

WINTER

Jon could only hold on, with no idea how he was doing it. He nearly fell when the green dragon, having disposed of the Other that had fallen with him, flew upwards at a speed that nearly broke his neck.

Steam rose from his cloak and his hair. At this rate he might dry out for the first time in weeks.

He swayed with the beat of the dragon’s great wings. They climbed high, higher, circling far above the Wall. He had never dreamed of such a thing.

Below, men and monsters stared up through their dying moments.

That shook him in a different way.

“Help!” he shouted in the general direction of the dragon’s ears. “Help us! Burn them!”

He had no expectations, but it was too cruel to sit atop a creature of living fire and watch winter swarm over all he had sworn to defend.

“Burn them all!”

The cream dragon dropped in front of his, and his snapped at its tail. Jon gave up any thoughts of doing anything other than hanging on. 

At last he could see that the two dragons were chasing their larger brother, just visible in the distance. The girl crouched low over the fearsome black’s neck. She urged it faster as they swooped down. At first Jon thought they missed, then he realised she wasn’t aiming for the Wall but beyond it, at the mass of winter’s army that had yet to even reach the Wall. He could see the girl’s mouth open in a scream as the dragon’s opened in a vast rumbling roar of flame. Jon ducked his head, though they were nowhere near. Even at this distance the heat blazed to his bones.

The black whirled round at the girl’s urging and a single beat of its wings brought them alongside Jon and his green.

He got his first clear look at her. Her silver hair was pulled back from her face, which glowed pink with exertion and exhilaration. Her mouth parted as she breathed deeply. The falling snow did not reach her face.

She raised a hand in acknowledgement and he noticed she wore no sleeves, let alone gloves. He wondered where she had last slept.

He wondered if he had died after all.

But dead men’s stomachs didn’t roil, and when the dragons turned to follow the girl and the black, he was left in no doubt.

“Come on!” she shouted.   
Hours passed like that, rising, falling, floating, jarring. Sometimes they followed her, sometimes he was alone with the green dragon, who moved like a combination of serpent, eagle and mammoth.

They brought death and cheated death. Jon hadn’t felt so alive since the time he scaled the Wall.

In the end he fell from the dragon’s back as suddenly as he’d fallen onto it. Mercifully they were far nearer to the ground this time, and he landed in a bank of snow.

“We’ve lost the Wall.”

He said the words but didn’t feel them. The Wall had been lost long ago.

She jumped from the dragon’s back and landed without a bump.

“Yes. But you’ve found your flame.”

It was remarkable how she could be so pale and stand out so much against the snow.

“You’ll freeze,” he said, unbuckling his cloak to offer it to her.

“No.” She gestured for him to wrap the cloak around them both. “And you won’t. We are blood of the dragon.” 

The palm of her hand pressed against him make his skin pulse.

She brought fresh meaning to being kissed by fire.

~

SPRING

Jon clutched the pommel of his sword, much good may it do him.

“My lady- my queen- Daenerys- I had no idea. I didn’t think you meant…”

She raised her eyebrows.

He tried again. “I only mean that, well, you had been married before.”

“I’ve burned two husbands,” she said drily. “My honour is hardly the issue.” She dismissed his splutters with a wave of the hand. “This is about blood, Jon _Snow_. We are the _last_ dragons.”

She frowned.

“Is that it? Have you heard that I cannot bear you an heir? It hardly matters if I can: after the things I’ve seen, I would not. But the people left… they are our people. They are all our children. They need looking after.”

He took a deep breath and stepped forward to take her hands.

“It’s not that. I hadn’t even thought. Aye, if I ever did marry, I’d want a dozen fat children, sat around a warm hearth, to tell all my stories to. I’d want all the things I never had. But, Daenerys, I always knew I’d never marry. I won’t make another vow to break.”

He tried to pull back but she held on. Her strength of grip shouldn’t have been surprising, given her confidence on dragonback, but it was hard to look on her and not think of her as fragile. Unless you saw her with her children.

“We want the same thing, Snow. We want _home_.”

He pulled her into a kiss but broke it before he could lose himself. Still, it was harder than it should have been to pull away.

“The North is my home. It’s more vulnerable than ever since the Wall came down. I’ve a sister there and she’s going to have a child.”

“She is not your sister.”

“Whichever way you look at it, she’s family. Sansa and I weren’t close as children, but perhaps I can do something for her now.” He hesitated. “You’re family too.”

He watched her think. “The North doesn’t need me,” she said quietly. “It’s united behind your- behind Sansa Stark.”

She was far too dangerous to bring North. He was glad he didn’t have to tell her that.

“I know. You need to bring some hope to the rest. There’s no one left who would oppose you.”

She touched Drogon’s flank and bent to kiss it. Jon watched her hand rise and fall with the dragon’s heartbeat.

“No. They won’t fight.”

She climbed back into the saddle, and Jon realised his battle was over.

“I’ve never had any power in peacetime,” she said. “I was helpless, and then I was at war.”

One more time, Jon knelt. “Not a soul would be alive if it weren’t for you, my queen.” 

“You will visit your old aunt sometime. Soon. Or I will have to come and see you.”

He knew a threat when he heard one. He took it as a promise.

Drogon circled him, gaining speed as he went. Ghost puffed up to his full size, hackles risen. As Drogon prepared for flight, Jon tried to run alongside but within a few steps he was outstripped.

“I’ll see you again!” he shouted, just before being sent sprawling by a clip of Viserion’s wing as the second dragon chased his brother.

They were far away by then, but he thought he saw her laugh.

Ghost licked his shoulder where the wing tip had torn through his cloak and shirt. Unblinking red eyes stared at him.

“Come on, you,” he sighed. “It’s a long way home.”

~

END


End file.
